Rough Ride (11 page)

Hinault controlled things again today and the race started with just fifty
kilometres to go, which suited me fine. The Puy is a savagely steep five-kilometre
ramp but I rode up it OK. I think I can make it now.

Saturday, 26 July
Stage 22: Clermont-Ferrand to Nevers (194 kilometres)
Stage winner: Guido Bontempi
Race leader: Greg LeMond

A nightmare. I was the only rider in the whole peloton to be left behind when
the pressure went on, twenty kilometres from the finish. The shame of it,
I am totally knackered. But the real problem is tomorrow. The lads have been
telling me that the speed on the Champs Elysées is something incredible.
What if I'm left behind in front of millions of television spectators –
and, worse, in front of my father, who will be in the crowd? God, the shame
of it! 'No one gets dropped on the Champs Elysées,' they said. But damn
it, I was the only one to be dropped today. After dinner there was a small
meeting in one of the rooms. One or two of the lads were preparing syringes.
Cutting them down to size, preparing them for the white amphetamines they
would use the next day. I was astonished. 'What about the controls?' They
smiled. Safe smiles. 'Tomorrow is the last stage of the race. Only the stage
winners and leaders will be controlled. There is no random testing. That's
why no one gets dropped on the Champs Elysées.' I was tempted, desperately
tempted. They offered me a charge, explaining that I could take it in tablet
form if I preferred. I refused and said I needed time to think. I didn't despise
them. They were my friends. I understood. Hadn't we suffered enough? They
wanted to help me. I wanted to accept their help, but that bloody conscience
of mine was stopping me. I had never smoked behind my father's back. Had always
been dependable and good. I had an acute sense of right and wrong. Taking
drugs was wrong. The only merit I had now was finishing this race. If I did
it with the help of amphetamines I could never forgive myself. But it was
so tempting. I badly wanted to be one of the boys.

Sunday, 27 July
Stage 23: Cosne-sur-Loire to Paris (252 kilometres)
Stage winner: Guido Bontempi
Race winner: Greg LeMond

It was a great stage. A fun stage. The triumphant ride into Paris. During the long 252-kilometre ride to the capital a bottle of champagne was passed around the bunch. There was the singing of the Tour song 'Oh, Champs Elysées' and spirits were high. I got more and more nervous as we approached Paris and the speed went up. I saw one of the lads taking his stuff. It was so simple. The metal tube was opened. The plastic cap, protecting the needle, was taken off and held between the teeth. The right sleeve of the jersey was rolled back and the needle was slipped into the skin of the shoulder and with a squeeze of the sawn-off piston the amphetamines were pushed in. The plastic cap was replaced on the needle, the syringe was put back in the tube and into the pocket. Beautifully done and terribly simple. One of the lads offered me a tablet, but I refused and lied that I was feeling fine.

We could see the Eiffel Tower. What a wonderful sight. We raced along the bank of the Seine past the huge mass of metal, then swung left into Place de la Concorde and on to the Champs Elysées. The roar from the crowd sent goose pimples through my legs and though we raced up and down at over sixty kilometres an hour I felt no pain. I was so overjoyed at having made it, so overcome with the magnificence of it all that I didn't feel the pedals. The finish line was crossed and we ground to a halt. Bernard Vallet stopped beside me and embraced me. He had tears in his eyes. 'Now you know what it is to ride the Tour de France.' My father was standing just a little further on. He threw his arms around me. I was so pleased he was here to share my triumph. It was the happiest day of my life. Two hundred and ten riders had started. One hundred and thirty-two had finished. I was 131st. I had survived. I was a 'Giant of the Road'.

The Tour was a great education. I learnt so much about myself and the real world of professional cycling. Every race before the Tour had been almost child's play compared to 'La Grande Boucle'. The Tour was the ultimate. The 100 per cent race. Finishing it had instilled in me a certain sense of pride. It took a hard man to finish and I now had my 'hard man's licence'. I had expected it, but it had been much harder than I had imagined. I had felt like abandoning a hundred times in the last week but I didn't give in. I couldn't, for I felt my survival as a professional rider depended on getting to Paris. RMO was a small team, but at the end of the season the weak men would be sacked and new blood brought in. Monsieur Braillon was not pumping money into cycling to play in the second division. Big names would be signed and small names got rid of to make room for them. I had a contract for two years so I was assured of my place for 1987, but already I was thinking ahead to 1988. I may not have been the classiest bike rider in the world, but I had other qualities. Courage, guts and honesty. In a year's time Thevenet would remember not that I had finished the Tour on my hands and knees but that I'd finished.

I had made some bad mistakes. I had been desperately naïve in thinking I could ride a Tour de France on two multi-vitamin tablets each morning. The Tour de France was no ordinary race. It made superhuman demands on the human body. Riding six hours a day for twenty-three days was not possible without vitamin supplements, mineral supplements, chemicals to clean out a tired liver, medication to take the hardness out of rock-hard leg muscles. Taken in tablet form the medication passed through the stomach and liver. This was extra work for already overworked organs and the result was that much of the benefit of the product was lost. Injections avoided this and were therefore much more efficient. A syringe did not always mean doping. In a perfect world it would be possible to ride the Tour without taking any medication, so long as everyone else did the same. But this was not a perfect world. We were not doping, we were taking care of ourselves, replacing what was being sweated daily out of our bodies. The substances taken were not on the proscribed list, so how could we be doping? And yet one thing was becoming clear to me: as soon as you started playing, as soon as you accepted the taking of medication, the line between what was legal and what was illegal, between taking care of yourself and doping grew very, very thin. Most fellows cross it without ever realising they have. They just follow the advice of a team-mate or
soigneur.
'So and so swears by this, any time he wants to do a ride he takes it.' And even though the rider himself may not want to take the product, perhaps doubting its legality, the thought of being disadvantaged changes his mind. It's a bit like the arms race: 'Laurents got an intercontinental missile in his arse today, I'd better get one or I'll be blitzed.' And before they know it they are in the middle of a very dangerous game. By accepting an injection on the night of the Nantes time trial, I had indeed entered the 'dope stadium'. I was, however, firm in my commitment to stay off the playing field as far as illegal substances were concerned. Could this last? I hoped so.

On the night the Tour finished we were back on the Champs Elysées, but this time dressed in shirt and tie and pressed trousers. It felt great to be able to wear normal clothes again. For a month we had spent our days with a sweaty jersey on our backs and the greasy leather chamois of our racing shorts on our bums while at nights we were obliged to wear the drab old team tracksuit. Champagne was the beverage of the 'soiree' as we clinked our glasses to half-naked cabaret girls at the Millionaires' Club. It was a great night. Next day, I returned to Grenoble. As a way of trimming down travelling expenses it was decided that Dede and I travel home with the equipment truck. The journey was long and tedious as we had a long detour to drop Dede at his home in Rumilly before finally arriving in Grenoble. There was no tickertape welcome awaiting me. The football centre was empty as most of the apprentices were on their summer holidays, but as I entered my room I got a sharp surprise. A young black footballer was lying on Ribeiro's bed, and I noticed immediately that my personal belongings were not as I had left them. His name was Charles and he explained to me that Ribeiro had flown back to Brazil for two months and that he had been ordered to take his bed. This Charles seemed a nice enough fellow, but I was furious. After a month's suffering, what a way to travel home and what a home to come home to! I would have to look for an apartment of my own, for the centre was becoming impossible to live in. I had to get out. It would take time to find a suitable flat, but there was no question of me spending my two weeks' holidays with these arrogant brats. I decided to return home to Dublin.

I had not seen Ann for six months as she had spent the summer working in New York. I had phoned her from a coin box in Nantes on her birthday and she had spent much of the five minutes crying. New York was not working out; she was finding it hard to get work. Like thousands of others, she had gone there without a student's working visa and had no social security number. She had gone in the hope of raising money to pay for her studies, but her tears told me she would barely cover her travel expenses. I told her to fly home and she arrived two days before I did. It felt good to be back, surrounded once again by the warmth of one's family. To have your girlfriend throw her arms around you and tell you she loved you. It made it all worthwhile. The emptiness of the football centre was a million miles away. I felt like a star.

There were two city-centre 'criterium' races on in Dublin and Cork. Professional races with Kelly and Roche both riding. Sean, Stephen and Martin were all managed by a Dublin businessman called Frank Quinn. I was always sceptical about managers who scratched their backsides and demanded 10 per cent but Frank was different. He had a great human quality about him. He cared and this was important to me. At the start of the year he had offered me his services and I accepted. In my four years of professionalism I think it is the only manager-rider relationship which finished with the rider owing the manager money, but that's the way Frank is. He phoned the race organisers, informed them I was available and talked about a contract for the two races. It was very fair and on a par with what a new professional would get in France – about £250 per race. They offered him a pittance, claiming their budgets were all tied up. I felt really let down, insulted even. The organisers had flown over a load of continental pros for the events and here I was, one of only four professionals in the country, one of only five Irishmen ever to have ridden the Tour de France – and they could find no place for me. There was no place for Martin either. It was despicable. This took a lot of the good out of being home. I no longer felt quite the star and was almost looking forward to going back to France.

Thevenet phoned me in Dublin at the end of the two weeks and told me to fly straight to Amsterdam for the Tour of Holland. The flat, open plains did not suit me and I spent a very uncomfortable week. It was a huge come-down from the glories of the Tour and, not at all motivated, I abandoned with a stage to go. Of the four RMO riders present, only I had ridden the Tour. The other Tour riders were in France riding criteriums.

Criteriums were a French tradition in August. The Tour would generate huge interest for cycle racing in July, but in August there was nothing. The criteriums were a means of avoiding the cold turkey syndrome. A placebo for an addicted public until the autumn classics. The mayor of a small village would decide he wanted the stars of the Tour de France in his town and would contact a criterium manager. The manager would submit the price of engaging thirty professionals and the mayor would hand over the money. The manager then set about contacting the riders. He would sign up three or four really big names, the Tour winner if possible, the French champion, and two or three Tour stage winners. Most of the mayor's cash would be spent on these, for these were the men who drew the crowds. The rest of the peloton was made up of usually twenty-five small-timers or
domestiques.
It was at criteriums that the poorly paid
domestique
made most of his money. For the two to three-hour street race he was paid about £350. It wasn't 100 cent profit. It was the rider's job to look after his own accommodation, travel and food. To economise most
domestiques
travelled together. It was not uncommon for them to race in Brittany, finish about midnight then jump into a car and drive to the next race at the opposite end of the country. To save time, and money, the pre-race meal was usually a bag of chips and a sausage roll bought from a chip van at the side of the road. If there was the possibility of a few hours' sleep a cheap and often sleazy hotel would be found, anything to save a few francs. As a result, on arriving at the criterium they were often in no condition to race – but this was a minor detail. Amphetamines were wonderful for motivating a tired
domestique
to climb once again into the saddle. And as there were never any controls it was at criteriums that abuse was at its highest. The drugs were never used in the pursuit of victory, because all the criteriums were fixed. The people came to see the star winning, so the star always won. That way the punters went away happy and would return next year. No, the amphetamines were an insurance. An insurance that riders would 'perform'. The small riders were expected to animate the race. The routine was to attack off the front for a few laps, milk the applause and then let the star bring you back. By doing this you felt uninhibited when, at the end of the night, you approached the manager and asked for the contract. Contracts were always paid after the event. Amphetamines ensured you got paid.

During the Tour Vallet had promised me he would find me a few contracts. He was a big name and had a lot of pull with the criterium managers, but it was like a lot of the promises he made – empty. I reckon I am the only rider to have finished the Tour in 1986 who didn't ride a single criterium that year. It was one thing being a
petit coureur
and French, but quite another being a
petit coureur
and Irish. They could ring up the criterium managers and demand favours; but I hated crawling, and besides I was afraid. I knew that the criterium would draw me close to the temptations of drugs and I didn't want that. I was afraid of being tempted, too many complications. If one of the lads offered me a charge, in good faith, before a criterium, how could I possibly refuse without offending him? I still wanted desperately to be one of the boys. If I refused a charge, I knew they would never totally accept me. And so being absent from the criteriums suited me just fine.

At the end of August we rode Paris-Bourges, a two-day stage race. It was my first contact with Gauthier since the day he had abandoned in the Tour. He was in good form and told me privately that he had received an offer to race with the Z Peugeot team in 1987. He had decided to accept. I was surprised as I felt sure he had made up his mind to retire. He had, but talking about retiring was one thing, actually doing it was another. There were not an awful lot of avenues open to a 32-year-old former
maillot jaune
of the Tour de France. He had had one or two offers of employment but none that pleased him. The local amateur club from his region had made him an attractive offer if he wore their colours for a year, but the thought of racing again as an amateur disturbed him.

There was a nice, relaxed atmosphere in the Paris–Bourges. Dede had been offered a new contract for 1987 and this cheered him up greatly. And when Dede was happy, we all were. He was always the life and soul of the party. I was knackered after the first stage and decided to go to bed early. I was not rooming with Gauthier but with one of the others, whose identity must remain secret. I had slept solidly for more than an hour when my room-mate came in and woke me. 'Paul I have a girl, and I'm on to a sure tiling. In a few minutes I'm going to bring her up. You just keep your eyes closed and pretend to be asleep.' I laughed and told him I was knackered and to stop pulling my leg. He went out and five minutes later he was back with a girl. There was a slight hesitation when she saw my sleeping body in the adjoining bed. 'That's Kimmage, the Irishman, he's a very heavy sleeper,' he assured her. I was lying there with my eyes closed, paralysed. He was serious. He was going to have intercourse with this girl on a bed almost touching my own.

At first they talked. She was competing in the women's race to be held next day. She asked him about his life as a professional and marvelled at his prowess. He played her along beautifully for fifteen minutes – then the clothes came off. The two bodies flopped down on the room's second single bed. I kept my eyes glued shut. I never saw anything, I didn't have to, the noise they made left nothing to the imagination. I thought about pretending to wake up, but this would only cause embarrassment all round. During dope controls I felt embarrassed when the commissars stared at me while I was urinating. How could he possibly have intercourse with a girl when there was someone else in almost the same bed? I couldn't believe it. Then I noticed the smell, a burning smell which I couldn't quite place. What could possibly be burning?

They lay motionless for five minutes and then she asked him if she could take a shower. He escorted her to the bathroom and carefully closed the door. He ran over to my bed and shook me by the shoulder. 'What about that, Polo, do you want a go now?' I insulted him, but this only seemed to please him more. 'What the hell is burning?' To dim the light in the room, he had placed a towel over the bedside lamp. He ran over to it, lifted the smouldering remains off the bulb and threw it out of the window. His partner finished her shower and re-entered the bedroom, no doubt amazed at the sleeping powers of the Irishman still unconscious on the other bed. He bid her goodnight and she left the room.

Next day as we started the second stage he was still euphoric about his conquest. He would ride up behind me and burst into a fit of laughter. Then he would go around the bunch telling all his mates about it and bring them to me for verification. The typical reaction was, 'I wouldn't have let him into the room unless I was sure of getting a go.' Or, 'I would have woken up, pushed him off and jumped on myself.' I don't know if all sportsmen are as gross as this. Not all cyclists are, but most of them are. There is this crude, savage side to them. I don't know if it's the demands of the sport that cultivate it, but it certainly exists. A typical example is the following: